Brighton Beach – Little Odessa

visiting New York, we were amused to find in Brighton Beach / Coney Island a concentrated Russian neighborhood (“Little Odessa”): Russian book stores, bars (Rasputin Restaurant), shops, churches – even the beach life was presenting the energy of this community!
title=”Brighton Beach Baptism 12″ – photo by RR’s (Russ Rowland, New York) Snap Shop, click on the picture to enter his galleries on Flickr
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recently I was excited, when the New York times presented the photographer Emine Ziyatdinova (Magnum Foundation) with a perfect photo reportage about the same topic: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/brighton-beach-bittersweet/?smid=tw-share “… images, which are by turns melancholy, absurd and funny…”

I am always amazed at how the demographic of a neighbourhood changes over time (and sometimes not…) – I can’t count the languages around here but apart from English (and French,of course) Russian, Polish, German, Yiddish, Phillipine and Vietnamese would be the top 6 – like a little UN without the bickering and indecision…